The present invention relates to an image reproducing apparatus, an image reproducing method, an image capturing apparatus, and a control method therefor. More specifically, the present invention is intended to perform image capture at an image rate higher than a reference image rate, which is set in advance, so that when an image signal of a generated captured image of a captured image is reproduced at the reference image rate, the reproduction speed is controlled in accordance with motion in the captured image.
Conventionally, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-295423, a method in which a captured image is temporarily held in a memory and is further recorded on a recording medium so that slow motion video can be reproduced in smooth motion.
That is, in a technique disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-295423, an image signal having a field frequency of, for example, 240 fields per second, which is higher than a normal field frequency of video signal, namely, 50 fields per second or 60 fields per second, is generated, and this image signal is sequentially stored in a memory. Further, when image capture is completed, the image signal stored in this memory is read at the normal field frequency of video signal and is recorded on a recording medium such as a hard disk device. Further, when a user instructs reproduction, the image signal recorded on this recording medium is reproduced at the normal field frequency of video signal. Therefore, a slow motion reproduction image with smooth motion can be obtained.
Incidentally, when the technique of Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-295423 is used, since an image signal of a captured image is stored in a memory at a high speed and is thereafter read from the memory and recorded on a recording medium, the time allowed for capturing an image with one-time image capture is limited by the capacity of the memory. For this reason, if the memory has a small capacity, it is difficult to hold an image signal of a captured image to be reproduced in slow motion in the memory. For example, if the timing of starting writing of an image signal in the memory is earlier than that of a captured image scene to be reproduced in slow motion, there is no space in the memory when the captured image scene to be reproduced in slow motion is written, and the image signal cannot be held. This causes a problem of missing a precious image capturing opportunity. Further, if the capacity of the memory is increased so that an image signal of a captured image to be reproduced in slow motion can be easily held in the memory, cost is increased. In addition, in a method in which an image signal of a captured image is stored in a memory and is thereafter read and recorded on a recording medium, a next scene cannot be captured before all image capture results stored in the memory have been read. For this reason, in a case where a desired scene is repeated at short intervals, some of the repeated scenes may be missed being captured.
Further, if an image signal of a high-speed captured image is recorded on a recording medium without the intervention of a memory, an image signal of a captured image to be reproduced in slow motion can be recorded on the recording medium even without controlling a recording timing of a captured image in accordance with memory capacity. However, if an image signal recorded in this manner is reproduced at a normal field frequency of video signal, all captured images recorded are reproduced in slow motion. Thus, there is a case where the waiting time for a desired slow motion image to be displayed is long.